What is the 'Flank' Speed of a Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier?

[rangerrebew]

What is the 'Flank' Speed of a Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier?
Story by Peter Suciu • 17h


© Provided by National Interest
Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarriers are among the fastest surface combatants, officially capable of exceeding 30 knots.
 
-Tactical officer Ross Hall shared that reaching "flank speed" involves significant torque and vibration as the four 25-foot, 30-ton propellers ramp up, taking about 10 minutes to achieve maximum speed.

-Despite the immense power and speed, there are no known attempts of sailors water skiing behind these carriers, although it is theoretically possible for experienced water skiers given that the average water skiing speed is around 26 knots.
 
What is the Max Speed of a Nimitz-class Supercarrier – Fast Enough You Could Water Ski
The United States Navy's largest vessels are also among the fastest surface combatants in service today – the question however is exactly how fast the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class super carriers can travel. Officially the United States Navy will only state that its carriers can exceed 30 knots, but how much remains unknown.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/what-is-the-flank-speed-of-a-nimitz-class-aircraft-carrier/ar-BB1q2pYW?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=6c80702e4e19431d92a030b197cd3036&ei=33

[rangerrebew]

I was aboard an old conventionally power carrier.  For the work we did, we needed to have a constant readout of the ship's speed in our office.  On one occasion I watched the old girl turn 43 knots and I know the nukes are considerably faster than she was.

[PeteS in CA]

Going all the way back to the USN's second carrier, USS Lexington, CV-2, the speed of US carriers plus the range to which their planes could carry ordnance were what made pre-Treaty battleships all but obsolete (that they carried 10 or 12 or ?? heavy AA guns and their ability to lob huge shells by the scores or hundreds 25 miles inland was still very valuable). IIRC, USS Ranger (CV-4) and USS Wasp (CV-7) were capable of 29 Kn, the slowest carriers the USN had in WW2. The rest could all do well north of 30 Kn.

Hull forms, propellers, and propulsion plants have advanced incredibly since the 1940s, to the point that the true top speed of USN carriers is something they won't publish.

[MeganC]

Some years ago on another forum I read a discussion analyzing the intercept between the USS Ronald Reagan and a Princess cruise liner off of Mexico. The Reagan moved from one place to being alongside the Princess ship in a certain amount of time.

Doing the math with the Princess ship hitting top speed at 19 to 21 knots the Reagan's speed worked out to 48 to 52 knots.

The starting positions of both ships were known and published. The time it took for them to come up to each other was known and published. The rest was just math.

Lots of people on that forum were calling the speeds utterly impossible and so on and so forth.

But it boiled down to a simple math question.

They just did not like the result.

[Smokin Joe]

In a word? Classified

Just like the nuclear submarines out there, not letting our enemies know how fast they can go, translates to an advantage. At best for them, they have to figure it out.